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are of paramount importance as water towers for people living there and for around two billion people living in connected lowland areas.

Mountain river systems are especially sensitive to and affected by and continuing human activity disturbance, including water pollution, hydropower development, water withdrawals for agriculture and human consumption and loss and
ecosystem changes.

Present and potential future hotspot regions of
water scarcity that rely heavily on mountainous water sources include Central Asia, South Asia, tropical and subtropical western South
America and southwestern North America.

At a global scale, 68% of irrigated
areas in lowlands depend on essential runoff contributions from the mountains. The dependence of lowland populations on essential
mountain runoff contributions increased by a factor of more than three from the 1960s to the 2000s, with increases of up to ten-fold in some major river catchments.

Source: IPCC

Small islands are increasingly affected by increases in temperature,
the growing impacts of tropical cyclones (TC), storm surges, droughts, changing precipitation patterns, sea level rise, coral bleaching and invasive species, all of which are already detectable across both natural and human systems.

Despite encompassing approximately 2% of the Earth’s terrestrial surface, oceanic and other high-endemicity islands are estimated to harbour substantial proportions of existing species including ~ 25% extant global flora, ~ 12% birds and ~10% mammals.

Intense TCs including Categories 4 and 5 TCs have threatened human life and destroyed buildings and infrastructural assets in small islands in the Caribbean and the Pacific.

Among 29 Caribbean islands, 22 were affected by at least one Category 4 or 5 TC in 2017. TC Maria in 2017 destroyed nearly all of Dominica’s infrastructure and losses amounted to over 225% of the annual GDP. Destruction from TC Winston in 2016 exceeded 20% of Fiji’s current GDP. TC Pam devastated Vanuatu in 2015 and caused losses and damages to the agricultural sector valued at USD 56.5 million (64.1% of GDP)

Source: IPCC
Image: Mauritius Island, Indian Ocean